


tonight i’m gonna dance (like you were in this room)

by icepools



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, briefly, mileven is SUPER background btw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:54:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26090710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icepools/pseuds/icepools
Summary: “Is that the last of your stuff?” Lucas asks softly. Will can picture them perfectly; arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe, small smile on their lips but a frown in their eyes.“Yeah. Last, um, last one. All taped up,” he forces out a little humourless laugh. Lucas does not return it.“Fuck. Okay. That’s good.” they mumble, but it’s clear that they’re lying. Trying to make today easier than it’s going to be.or: the byers are moving away.
Relationships: Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Will Byers/Lucas Sinclair
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	tonight i’m gonna dance (like you were in this room)

**Author's Note:**

> this is the closest thing to angst u will ever get from me btw ALSOO non binary they them lucas sinclair for today (and the rest of the days)

Will’s room feels empty.

His room hasn’t been this bare in years. It feels...weird. Wrong. Will’s bedroom is supposed to have music and movie posters on it, it’s supposed to have drawings on the wall, ones of increasing skill. It’s supposed to have drawing tools and cassette tapes haphazardly strewn about on the shelves.

Now, his walls are wooden and bare, his shelves packed away in a moving truck headed for New York, for a town just outside the city. At least when he goes to school, he’ll be near his mom.

Will sits in the middle of his barren room, with a box of art in front of him. The wall decor was the last thing he decided to take down. He couldn’t sleep a whole night in this room without his beloved _E.T._ poster and the polaroids of him and his friends, wreaking havoc in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana.

He stares down at the box, now completely full. On the very top of the pile sits a Polaroid; his favourite. It’s from Christmas, a few months after Will and Lucas got together. The picture is of them, passed out and cuddled up on the couch. El was the one who took it, and she scribbled a little _young lovers est. 1986_ onto the small white space below the picture. 

Whenever Will saw that polaroid above his bed, he smiled. It’s a perfect picture. They look so happy in it.

He looks at it now and frowns.

If he could, he would cry. He wants to cry. Wishes he could. But he’s spent the last two weeks crying every night, and he’s pretty sure he’s rid himself of all his tears for a long while.

Inhaling deeply, Will closes the top of the box and grabs the roll of tape next to him to seal it shut.

He’ll look at it when he gets home.

Well, when he gets to New York. He’s already _home._

He’s about to pick up the box and take it to the truck outside when he hears a voice, a perfect, angelic voice say, “Hey,”

Will doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t want to. Can’t.

“Hi,” he responds, simply, squeezing his eyes shut. Fuck.

“Is that the last of your stuff?” Lucas asks softly. Will can picture them perfectly; arms crossed, leaning against the doorframe, small smile on their lips but a frown in their eyes.

“Yeah. Last, um, last one. All taped up,” he forces out a little humourless laugh. Lucas does not return it.

“Fuck. Okay. That’s good.” they mumble, but it’s clear that they’re lying. Trying to make today easier than it’s going to be.

Good. Yeah. It should be. It would be, if Will wasn’t leaving all the people he loves. Right?

Lucas doesn’t speak again, and Will stares at the box. If he waits long enough, maybe his mom will call the whole thing off. Unpack all the boxes and let Will spend the rest of his high school days with his best friends and his boyfriend.

But he can hear his family outside, filling up the moving truck with furniture and boxes, and he knows that if he doesn’t move, his mom will get mad at him. It’s a long drive, and she doesn’t want to be driving super late at night, and Jonathan doesn’t either.

So he huffs, and picks up the box—it’s very light—and brings it over to his doorway. Once it’s been set down on the floor, he stands up straight and looks at Lucas for the first time since they got to his room.

They’re perfect. Absolutely perfect. Other-worldly. Will is pretty sure that they’re a figment of his imagination, that they’ll disappear from existence as soon as they drive past the _Leaving Hawkins_ sign.

Oh. He’s crying again. How did that happen?

Right. Lucas happened.

Will’s not sure any of his tears have actually fallen yet, but Lucas is bringing him close within seconds, holding his waist gently.

“Hey now. What’s wrong? You were doing so well,” they speak quietly and gently, clearly not wanting to set Will off any more. And if it were anyone else, that statement would feel condescending. It would make him squirm and shift and frown. But because it’s Lucas, it just feels _loving._

Lucas’ thumb swipes under his eye to get rid of a tear that’s threatening to fall, smiling gently. Will loves them so much.

“You know…” he starts, but he doesn’t really know himself. He hopes his mouth will do all the talking, maybe uncover something he didn’t realize. “I won’t...get to see you for a while. And we’ve spent, like, every day together for years. I don’t wanna know what happens when I don’t see you for a whole day,”

Lucas squeezes the soft skin of his waist in reassurance. “Me neither. But we’ll call! Every day. I don’t care if El is on the phone with Micah, you can steal it from her. Mike’ll understand. _And_ we’re writing letters, aren’t we? I’ll write every week, even if I don’t have your letter yet. We’ve got it all planned out, right?”

Will looks down, not wanting to look Lucas in the eye. Lucas is having absolutely none of it, and uses their hand to tilt his chin up, forcing him to look at them.

“Well, that’s not it then, is it? Come on, talk to me, Will. You know you can,”

Will does know he can. But he doesn’t know what to say.

“What if it ruins us?” His voice comes out broken and forced, and when he finishes, a little sob comes out.

Oh. Okay.

Lucas squeezes his chin before pulling him into their arms. They hold him tightly around his stomach, and Will melts into them as his tears and sobs persist. Lucas hand stroking his hair only makes it worse, but there’s no way he’s asking them to stop.

“Hey, hey, come on, none of that, now. Do you really think that?” The frown is evident in their voice and Will cries harder into their collarbone. “Listen to me, Will. You know that won’t happen. We’re invincible. Will and Lucas. _Nothing_ can break us. Not on my watch, okay?”

Will does his best to nod, but he doesn’t think he gets the full motion in. Lucas’ thumb strokes his hip bone.

“You and me against the world. We’re gonna prove them wrong, remember?”

God, fuck, that _voice._ Lucas knows just what gets Will to calm down, how do they know that? They barely even said anything and somehow Will feels completely at peace again.

“Mhm.” he hums, quietly, but apparently enough for Lucas to hear. Once they’re both sure that the tears have subsided (for now), Lucas gently takes his head and lifts it so they’re looking into each other’s eyes. (Will thinks he can see a few tears gathering under Lucas’ eyes, but he doesn’t comment on them.)

Will can only imagine what he looks like right now. Red eyes, patchy skin, eyelashes clumping together. Tear tracks. He probably looks horrible. Not desirable at all.

But Lucas smiles at him, a stunning, warming Sinclair smile and suddenly Will feels like the most beautiful boy in the world.

Lucas gently wipes at his eyes and cheeks with their thumbs again, ridding his face of tears. They’ve probably left red streaks in their wake, but now that his face is dry he’s starting to feel better.

Will expects them to continue drying his tears with their fingers, but they catch him off guard by leaning forwards and down, kissing the sides of his nose where some of his tears had settled. Will says nothing. 

They then lean down further and kiss the corners of his mouth, once again where some tears stopped. The gesture is so simple, so caring, that Will nearly starts crying again.

Finally, they reach his jaw, kissing every inch of it until the tears are gone. When Lucas looks up again, their lips are a little shiny with Will’s tears, which is honestly kind of gross, but they look so _pretty_ that Will doesn’t care.

He looks at them for a moment, feels his whole face tingle from where they’d kissed it, and just _whimpers_ and says, quietly and shakily, “ _God,_ I love you so much.”

Usually, when one of them says the L word, they kiss. It’s just an instinct; the feeling of being loved so overwhelming. Will silently begs Lucas not to kiss him. Not now. Too much.

Lucas, because they’re Lucas and they know everything about Will, every little mannerism, every little detail, catches onto Will’s silent pleas immediately. They run a hand through his hair, slightly wavy from sweat, and lean their foreheads together softly. Will sighs and closes his eyes, unable to do much else.

Neither says anything. They don’t need to. Maybe they don’t want to. Today has been very confusing and overwhelming—it’s kind of nice to have a break from, well, everything. 

Plus, Will is leaving soon. For a long time. And they both want to spend the rest of his time in Hawkins together.

After what feels like forever (and what was really five minutes), Will sighs again, opening his eyes. Lucas is looking at him softly, a sadness in their eyes.

He’ll never get over how beautiful they are. Not ever.

“I wish we could stay here forever,” whispers Will. His voice is sadder and shakier than he intended.

Lucas takes his hand up to their face and presses a few featherlight kisses to his fingertips. The action makes Will’s stomach swoop.

“Me, too.” they reply quietly, so quietly.

Will wants to say something else. Anything else. Anything to keep them here, in this safe place, away from change and the unfamiliar.

He can’t think of anything.

“We should get these boxes to the truck.” Lucas says after a moment. Will just squeezes his eyes shut and nods.

Neither of them move.

* * *

There’s only a few more boxes in the living room, patiently waiting to be brought into the moving truck. The reality of how quickly their departure is approaching makes Will’s heart rate pick up.

Lucas takes a random box of clothes; Will is pretty sure it’s one of El’s. They give him a soft look before going to take the box outside.

Will knows exactly what box he’s taking out. He’d put it near the bottom of the pile the night before, and he’d clearly written **DO NOT TOUCH** under the (admittedly kind of weirdly mysterious) title of **WILL’S STUFF**.

He’s the only person he really trusts with its contents. Except Jonathan.

Which is why he has absolutely no problem handing it off to them when he reaches the truck, allowing them to gently place it among the others. Somehow, he thinks they know exactly what’s in it.

Will doesn’t leave the truck once it’s in. He should go back in and get another box. He needs to go back in. He needs to—

“You doing okay, buddy?”

Jonathan’s comforting tone brings him back down to the ground, and he turns to them.

“No,” he says.

Jonathan looks over at Lucas, who is quickly approaching with another box. They’re so helpful. So good.

“I know,” Jonathan says back, frowning at him sympathetically. It feels like pity. “I think we’ve got it covered out here, why don’t you…”

If it was any other occasion, literally anything else, Will would argue. He’d say _no, no way, I’m helping you with this thing._

Today, he takes Lucas’ hand the second it’s free and brings them back into the house.

They have a job to do.

For the past three weeks, both Will and Lucas have worn one specific sweater (Lucas’ dark green, Will’s navy blue) each, every day. Neither of them even take it off when they sleep. (Will only knows Lucas doesn’t because just last night, when they laid in bed together for the last time, they wore it. It was soft.)

The plan is to switch them. So they have something that smells like the other, something that belongs to the other.

(“I really like this sweater,” Lucas told them one night, when they’d first started wearing them. They had both cried that night. “So you’d better let me come take it back eventually.”

They’d both known what that meant: _please don’t lose me, please let us stay together, please don’t let us break._ )

They both know the scent will fade after a while, but they’re hoping that by then, they’ll be able to see each other again and trade them back.

They finally reach Will’s room, and for a while they just stand there. The slower they move, the longer they have.

“Are you gonna wear it in the car?” Lucas asks eventually. They tug at the hem of their sweater. Will’s sweater soon. Shit.

“Yeah. Are you gonna wear yours today?”

“Yeah.”

Will nods. They can’t prolong it any longer. With a heavy sigh, he tugs off the sweatshirt, messing up his hair in the process. He doesn’t care. It didn’t look good before he took it off anyway.

Lucas’ sweater is already in their hands, and, slower than is necessary, they trade them. Will says goodbye to his blank navy blue sweatshirt and hello to Lucas’ green Hawkins High one.

He pulls it on immediately, partly because he’s suddenly very cold but mostly because he just needs Lucas’ warmth.

When his head pokes through the neck hole, Lucas is smiling at him, Will’s sweater already on their body.

“What?” Will asks. Despite not knowing what Lucas’ smiling is all about, he feels his mouth quirk upwards. Screw Lucas and their highly contagious smile.

“You look so fucking good in green.” they reply, smile widening as they stare unabashedly at Will. He feels his face get hot but grins back nonetheless.

“Not as good as you do, though.” That’s true. No one pulls off green like Lucas Sinclair pulls off green.

Lucas laughs, shakes their head, and holds out their arms. “C’mere.”

Will knows what’s coming when he fits himself into Lucas’ embrace. They squeeze his sides before bringing their hands up to his face, and then they gently squeeze there, too. Will just places his hands on their chest and allows his eyes to close slowly.

Lucas’ lips are soft and warm on his own, and the kiss is more comforting than anything else. Will tries not to think about how this is probably a goodbye kiss and tightens his grip on Lucas’ sweatshirt.

He thinks he could stay here forever. He could. He would. He will.

Lucas pulls away after a minute, stroking his cheek gently. Will sighs and wraps his arms around Lucas’ neck and holds on tightly, like if he were to let go they would disappear.

Lucas returns the hold, squeezing Will’s small frame against their body, as if trying to meld them together.

They stay there for a while. Happy. Kind of.

Will can barely see over Lucas’ shoulder, but when he looks through the window he sees that everyone is outside.

“We have to go out there, don’t we?” he asks quietly, voice muffled by Lucas’ shoulder. He feels Lucas inhale and exhale deeply.

“I think so.”

They stay there, holding each other close, before Lucas speaks again.

“I love you,” they whisper into Will’s hair, squeezing him tightly.

“I love you more,” he says back, kind of trying to get into an argument about who loves the other more. Keeping himself there.

“I know.” Lucas says instead of arguing.

* * *

They hold hands on the way out.

Will doesn’t want to kiss Lucas again. The one in his room was so good and satisfying that he doesn’t want to ruin it with something less than.

Will silently tells Lucas this, and Lucas silently agrees.

When they get outside, the moving truck is closed. They’re really leaving after they say goodbye.

Everyone else is pretty preoccupied in saying goodbye to the other members of the Byers family (less so Jonathan, because they’d only come back from university to help pack), but it seems Max had managed to get a break from it all. They stand separate from the others and stare at Will and Lucas knowingly.

They’d been their biggest supporter when they had told the party about their relationship. Will is forever grateful.

When the rest of their friends spot them, they’re rushing over to Will to say their goodbyes to him individually. El makes her way over to Lucas, and Will allows himself to leave them alone for five minutes while he says goodbye to his other friends. 

Because at the end of the day, he’s not just losing a boyfriend. 

He’s losing everyone. 

Dustin picks him up when he hugs him. Over the years, he’s gotten very tall and very strong. He’s probably the only one of them who could play a sport. 

He doesn’t, though, and instead joins them in their Dungeons and Dragons adventures and _Star Wars_ movie marathons in Micah’s basement.

Micah is much gentler with him, holding him close and hiding her face in his shoulder as they both hold back tears. 

Above all his friends (except Lucas, but they’re different), Micah is his closest. They’ve known each other forever. Tell each other everything. She came out to him first. He pretends that he came out to her first, even though she was actually the last in the party to hear about it.

He’s going to miss her.

Finally, he says goodbye to Max.

Max holds him close and doesn’t cry at all. Of course they don’t. They’re Max.

“Are you okay?” they ask quietly. No one is around to hear them, but they whisper anyways.

“No.” he replies, and squeezes them a little tighter.

Will loves his friends, he really does, but _god_ does he need the goodbyes to stop. He’s already been overwhelmed enough today, and he’s _tired_ of holding back tears so he doesn’t embarrass himself in front of people he doesn’t want to see him cry.

Which is why he’s more than happy when Lucas finally returns to his side, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him into their side. He immediately relaxes and lets out a deep breath.

Lucas makes everything okay.

Will looks around at his friends. Max and Dustin are talking to Joyce about something. Jonathan is missing, probably getting the truck started up. 

El and Micah, however.

They’re holding each other close, clearly crying. Micah holds El’s face in her hands and El threads her fingers through Micah’s hair.

They look so... _sad._ Will thinks that’s probably what it looked like earlier, when Will cried to Lucas in his doorway. But seeing it from an outside perspective makes it sadder.

The sight makes Will’s chest tighten. He feels bad about being so sad. Here are El and Micah, two people that have been dating since before they started high school, two people who have been each other’s better half for three years now.

That’s _nothing_ compared to Will and Lucas. They’ve only been dating for a year. Will thinks his sadness isn’t justified. He hasn’t even had Lucas to call his boyfriend for that long.

El and Micah are a part of each other. When you see El, most of the time Micah is there with her, holding her hands. They are one in the eyes of their friends.

Are Will and Lucas one yet? Probably not. So Will can’t be sad. Not when El has to leave the love of her life, girlfriend of three whole years.

But then, isn’t that what Lucas is to Will?

If Will is honest with himself, he’s still not used to calling Lucas his boyfriend. Maybe what they have isn’t like El and Micah. Maybe this won’t be so bad. Will wonders how the hell he came to this conclusion. It’s probably bullshit.

He tears his eyes away from Micah and El and instead looks up at Lucas. They’re staring at him, love and sadness in their eyes.

Will decides then and there, as tears blur his vision once again, that his previous conclusion is, in fact, complete and utter bullshit.

* * *

Will’s new bedroom feels empty.

They got to their new house at around two in the morning, so they haven’t done anything except bring in the boxes with the most valuable things in them and a few important furniture items. Jonathan is already back in the city, in their apartment that they share with some fellow NYU friends. It’s just Will, El, and his mother.

All that’s in Will’s bedroom (slightly bigger than his room back in Hawkins, which is pretty cool) right now is a mattress and a little lamp that he plugged in next to it. No personality. No creativity. No _Will._

He’ll decorate it soon, hopefully. He’ll be able to put his posters back up and put his beloved polaroid above his bed, just like home.

This is his home now. It sure doesn’t feel like it. Home is with Lucas. Home is when he wakes up at three in the morning because his stupid boyfriend still doesn’t really know how to open his window from the outside.

His window.

Will looks up at the window in his new room. It’s big. 

It’s around this time that Lucas usually came in. 

The tradition came after the Upside Down. Will was prone to fairly violent nightmares, so Lucas came over on most nights to help keep him calm and make him feel safe. Lucas was the only one who could really do that.

If Will thinks about it, he’s pretty sure those nights are where the feelings started.

Then, when they finally started dating, most nights became every night. Every night spent together, holding hands, occasionally exchanging soft kisses, wrapped up in each other’s warmth.

This will be their first night apart in a year.

Will has to hold back a sob, because he’s _tired_ of sobbing. Especially if there’s no one to hold him while he does it. 

As quietly as possible, he leaves him room to go into the living room. There’s something he needs there.

It’s dark in the house, and he kind of freaks out, but he tries to focus on his destination instead of where he is.

Thankfully, his mom had set up a lamp in the living room as well, so he clicks it on and looks around. 

It doesn’t look like a home. It’s weird.

He scans the boxes until he finds what he’s looking for; the box he’d written **DO NOT TOUCH** on, because it was too valuable for anyone else to hold.

Will smiles at his worries for the safety of his box, picks it up, and takes it back to his room.

Once the box is safely put on his bed, he opens it up to reveal his cassette player and extensive collection of tapes.

He’s gathered quite a few in his sixteen years of living. Especially after the Upside Down, when he really started to get into music. It gave him an escape.

He’s kind of hoping that’s what happens now.

He takes the player out and opens it up, then digs around the box to find the tape he’s looking for. When he pulls it out, he smiles.

This is the first (and so far only) tape Lucas made for him. They told him that they stayed up all night finding songs that worked. Some were songs that reminded them of the two of them, some were just songs that they liked.

Will turns it to look at the title. _l + w, vol. 1._ It’s written in Lucas’ kind of messy handwriting, and Will loves it more than anything in the world.

He puts the tape in and hits play, making sure that the volume is low.

_Heroes_ by David Bowie quietly fills his room. Will smiles again, kind of happy, kind of sad.

He and Lucas used to dance to this song all the time. Slow dance sometimes, even though the song doesn’t call for a slow dance at all. Those dances always filled his room with so much life and warmth.

The room feels cold.

Will had thought that maybe some music would make his night easier. Maybe he would jump around until he got tired and pass out on his mattress.

It’s not enough.

He leaves the room again, this time searching for the phone Joyce had set up before she went to bed. She’d promised Karen Wheeler that she would call when they were home safe. In return, Karen promised that she would relay the news to the party and their parents.

Thankfully, the phone isn’t far from his bedroom. He dials the Sinclair’s number, hoping that Lucas is the one who answers, and brings the phone into his room. The chord is long enough to reach it, but he needs to move his mattress closer to the door to sit down.

Once he’s settled on the makeshift bed, door shut behind him, someone picks up. Will holds his breath, hoping, begging—

“ _Hello?_ ”

Will exhales with relief. Then he notes the tired tone to Lucas’ voice and instantly feels bad. 

“Shit, did I wake you? I’m sorry…”

Lucas seems to realize that it’s him, and they’re awake in an instant. “ _No, no, you’re fine, baby. Is everything okay? I heard from mom that you got there safe, but—_ “

Will brings his knees up to his chest. “Couldn’t sleep,” he mumbles, “It’s cold.”

He doesn’t exactly mean temperature cold, but he means that too. It’s cold because this house has no life, and because he’s not currently being held by Lucas.

Lucas sighs on the other end, a bit sadly. Will frowns at the sound. “ _I know. Are you wearing my sweater?_ ”

Will glances down at the dark green sweatshirt on his torso. He rubs at the Hawkins High logo. “Yeah,”

“ _Me, too. Yours, I mean. What’s your room like?_ ”

Will appreciates the topic change. Thinking about his lack of Lucas warmth was making him sad.

“Empty. Cold. Sad,” he laughs humourlessly, then looks back up at the window, “It’d be easy for you to climb into, though.”

Lucas laughs too, crackly and a little distorted from the phone line, but they laugh. Will smiles again. They’re both silent for a moment, before Will speaks up.

“Can you, um…” he trails off. Lucas waits patiently. “Can you stay on the line? While I sleep? I need to…hear your breathing.”

Lucas exhales deeply, like they’d been hoping Will would say that. “ _Of course._ ”

Will nods to nobody and lays down slowly. “Okay,” he pauses, then, “I miss you,”

“ _I miss you too. Fuck, I miss you so much. Miss your hands and your hair and your pretty little face,_ ”

Will giggles at that, a soft little sound. When Lucas speaks again, he can hear the smile in their voice.

“ _And that laugh. God, you’re killing me. Let’s go to sleep before I start crying, yeah?_ ”

Will laughs again, smiling at his wall. “Yeah. Okay. Cool.”

Will falls asleep with his boyfriend’s voice, his boyfriend’s breaths in his ear, and although his room and his body are cold, his heart is warm.


End file.
